Baseball

By Djack

Photo Via USA Today

Photo Via Newsday

10 months removed from a trip to the World Series and the New York Mets playoff hopes are hanging on by a thread. As most of you know if you've been watching the Mets the last 10-15 years, this is nothing new for them. Having a big season with a great a playoff run, followed by a disappointing season, that's the story of this franchise. This time it felt real though, I'm not even a Mets fan and i thought they were finally going to break through and become a consistently competitive team that was a threat to win the World Series for the next five or so years. The starting pitcher was being compared to the greatest rotations of all time, they had one of the best closers in the league in Jeurys Familia, and they signed Cespedes back so they're poised to make another postseason run right? Wrong! The uncalculated front office of the Mets didn't plan for the variables that get thrown at you throughout the course of a season. David Wright coming off a spinal injury... he'll be able to play like 120-130 games right? Wrong! They had no back up plan for him if he were to go down or have to miss some time, well he did get hurt, and they had no backup plan. Lucky for them the Rockies waived Jose Reyes and the Mets were able to pick him up since no one else wanted the wife beater on their team. Let me remind you, this is also six weeks after Wright went down. So, for six weeks of the season Terry Collins, had to try and find a plausible option to play third base, which given the talent he had on the roster... there wasn't one. The starting pitching staff was supposed to be the greatest we've seen since Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz. Well, they didn't even come close. Matt Harvey, the "ace" of the staff, was awful to start the season and than he hurt his shoulder and is now done for the year. Probably the best thing for him and the Mets with the way he was pitching. To sum up the rest of the young pitchers and their lackluster performances this season is pretty simple, they are young arms that were overworked and just need rest because their arms aren't accustomed to throwing that many innings yet. As much as I want to sit here and bash the Mets lineup I won't because I don't think they're the problem at all. Most of those players are playing up to the standard you would expect them to, but the front office just failed to form a real major league lineup. This could've all been avoided by the Mets with one signing, Daniel Murphy. If the Mets signed him he'd be in the three hole for the Mets helping them cruise to a division title, instead of watching him do it for the Nationals. I know no one could've predicted what Murph is doing this year, but he was still a good hitter even before this breakout year and he was the ultimate teammate. The Nats are a way more fun, energetic, and explosive team than last season and that's because of the NL MVP candidate that the Mets could've signed back, but decide not to for no good reason whatsoever. A lot has gone wrong for the Mets this season, it's probably over already, but as long as this young pitching core can come back healthy in 2017 you'll be alright. Oh, and hopefully the front office will get their heads out of their asses and make some moves in the off season.